Since I'm an old fart I remember tricks long forgotten. One of them was to put a V8 into an AD (47-55 1st) truck(we called them "round bodies") you used a 55 or 56 265V8 left exhaust manifold so the engine could be mounted in the center and still clear the steering gear box. The exhaust exited the manifold at the front bottom and had a 2 bolt flange that took a flat gasket. This gave ample room to route the exhaust pipe past the gearbox, clutch, and shift linkage. We weren't geniuses, it's just that the first V8's, the 265's would fit and in 57 the ones with the rams horn style and all the following ones wouldn't. The 265 is a flat log style manifold whitch would not be great for a hot rod engine but plenty good for a daily driver and can still be found at swap meets for $25 or so. All that said I'd go with the 235 and T5. Sometimes you have to grind a bump on the gear box a TINY bit but the bump has no important function.
